A Little Cheating
by Ms.MaraJade
Summary: Challenge from the writing prompt: describe an object without mentioning it in the story. Steve Rogers has a little trouble with a modern device, and Natasha Romanov offers guidance.
_Author's Notes_ : This was written in response to a challenge in one of my writing groups in which an object had to be described without actually mentioning the object in the story.

I hope I have captured the characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe adequately, as I have never written them before in any capacity.

Disclaimer: I make no money from this hobby, but I don't let that discourage my imagination.

Summary: Challenge from the writing prompt: describe an object without mentioning it in the story. Steve Rogers has a little trouble with a modern device, and Natasha Romanov offers guidance.

 **A Little Cheating**

 _Well, this is a new challenge_ , he thought. He could defeat the Red Skull, take down Chitauri warriors, and infiltrate Hydra. However, once he put something like this in his hands, he was immediately lost. There were no clear-cut directions, nothing that got him to move from Point A to Point B. Even glancing at the schematics filled his head with unfamiliar terms.

Looking at the device in his hands as though it was some kind of magic puzzle box, Steve Rogers couldn't really say that he had ever used anything like this before. Growing up, he never had any opportunity, as his family didn't own anything remotely like this, and the contraption was something he had usually seen other people utilizing – specifically the media.

Thinking back to his time before he was lost in an iceberg at the end of World War II, he remembered seeing the flashbulbs going off constantly, especially after rescuing so many of his fellow compatriots. There were times he walked blindly from the spots in his eyes, waving his costumed hand as a gesture of his patriotic sacrifices. He had crossed enemy lines time and again to ensure that Allied men and women were safely brought back home. For Captain America, helping others was what he had been born to do.

However, those memories were long lost and yet felt like yesterday. He was still disoriented by that 70-year nap. There were many nights when he closed his eyes, and he was back in the past. Big band orchestras filled his eardrums and the world was so much smaller – architecturally, technologically, and in ways he hadn't fully considered. If he gave himself enough time to think about it, he was certain he could find a thousand ways the world was smaller then. And yet for as large as the modern world was, it was even smaller than the one he had left behind. _Heaven help me, my head hurts at the paradox of it all_.

Bringing his wandering thoughts back to the present and the device within his hands, he turned the object so that the large, round eye faced his own. Slowly and gently, he gave the ring around it a little twist, watching the overlapping blades inside create an iris that expanded and shrunk. The fabricated cyclops eye gave him the impression of it being a creature, staring him down in an attempt to make him flinch.

Watching the iris within the slightly bowed glass, Steve understood that the theory behind this hadn't changed from the old black and white days of his time. However, the moment he flipped the small body back to the other side, it became overwhelming in technology. There were numerous buttons and knobs – most of which were barely labeled. There were markings in simple pictures that made little sense. _What the heck did a woman with a bonnet or a child with a ball cap have to do with pressing a button? Also, why was there a plus and minus? Did this thing do math?_ He had no idea what any of this stuff even meant – and the manual was of no help with its limited explanations. Everything was found on the information cluster called the Internet according to Tony, and apparently, this instruction manual was no exception. The pamphlet that came in the box had been written for people of this age who knew what these things were.

Taking a frustrated breath, his finger slipped on something, and he felt multiple buttons click beneath his thumb, as he tried not to drop the expensive device. Suddenly, a flash blinded his view, and he was blinking past it, hoping that he could try to decipher the menu that now appeared on the monitor. _Whatever happened to a package of film and a flashbulb?_ he wondered silently. It was enough to make his head spin.

Putting the device down, he had no choice but to try the small pamphlet one more time. Maybe he just read through it too quickly and missed some of the answers he sought in his haste to start using this new contraption. After a few moments of flipping through the pages and seeing nothing useful, he dropped it back onto the counter.

Catching his head in his hand, he leaned into it and rested his elbow on the ledge of the wooden mini-bar.

The feminine voice that answered his unspoken thoughts sounded playful, despite holding a dark undertone. "Modern technology can be a woeful mistress."

"I'm not entirely sure why I even thought this was a good idea, Natasha," Steve offered with a defeated smile. He watched as the woman referred to as the Black Widow slide up to the counter at the bar where he was sitting. Her dark, violet-colored shirt and black skirt stood out in the bright room, contrasting harshly against Steve's plain blue shirt and jeans.

With a presence that demanded attention, Natasha couldn't help that she always moved purposefully, but casually, and it was an odd combination, yet Steve had never seen her move any other way. Despite her natural ability to move like a seductress, Steve never saw her as anything less than the formidable soldier. Anyone who ever looked upon her with less than the respect she deserved was not worthy of his consideration.

Shrugging his shoulders, he told her what was really the root of his problem. "It's not like I go on vacations or have any chance for real memories I want to capture."

She tilted her head to the side slightly, and her fiery red hair moved with her movement, but not enough to block her view. Her eyes held some kind of wisdom in them, despite her youthful features. Her voice was always sultry, and he could tell she did her best to restrain it while amongst her friends. "It's not about what you would do with this that's important to you. It's about learning the modern side of what you used to know. Absolutely, you could go and try to find this stuff vintage, but you're no longer in that place or time."

With careful but assured fingers, Natasha lifted the small, black object from the counter and turned it so that the small monitor faced her. She moved it slightly so that her eyes now scanned over the knobs on the top. Clicking one of them into place, she held it confidently in her fingers. She turned slightly from him and raised it to her eyes as though to use it but didn't press any other buttons. "Start with 'Auto' for now. Get used to how it feels and what it does."

Steve raised an eyebrow, watching how natural she looked with it in her hands. "That's cheating. In my time, you did everything manually."

Natasha turned back to him, and her crooked smile told him a lot more than it intended. She definitely understood the purpose of cheating – and its many reasons. She turned the device over to him, and held it out for him to take. "Seems to me that you would benefit from a little cheating in order to get caught up with today's technology. There's a whole, new world out there waiting for you to explore."

Finally accepting the offered item, Steve lifted it to his eye and peered through it. He wanted to see what she changed or how she made it seem different than what he had been doing. Not able to find anything out of place, he used the device like a third eye and caught sight of the bowl of fruit on the counter. He pushed the main button with his right index finger, and a series of noises filled the quiet room. It was nearly instant, but the device beeped before gears wound and the familiar click of the shutter ended the moment.

Pulling it from his face, he looked at the small image on the monitor. "At least they kept the sounds. That's kind of nostalgic on the manufacturer's part."

Natasha, scooped up one of the apples from the bowl and gave him a wink. "Cheat for a while. Start small. Then, we'll get into complications."

Laughing quietly, Steve took his new contraption and set the strap around his neck. He watched his fellow compatriot in this modern time take a bite of the apple as she silently left him alone with his new past time. He needed something to do when he wasn't saving the Earth from all manners of threats, and it had come time to learn a leisure skill. He had settled on this simply because he never did get a chance to learn photography before the war started. He would just have to learn it differently – with advanced technology now.


End file.
